| California chaparral and woodlands | |
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| Ecology | |
| Biome | Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub |
| Geography | |
| States | California and Baja California |
The California chaparral and woodlands is a terrestrial ecoregion of lower northern, central, and southern California (United States) and northwestern Baja California (Mexico), located on the west coast of North America. It is an ecoregion of the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub Biome, and part of the Nearctic ecozone.
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The California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion is subdivided into three smaller ecoregions.
Most of the population of California and Baja California lives in these ecoregions, which includes the San Francisco Bay Area, Ventura County, the Greater Los Angeles Area, San Diego County, and Tijuana.
The California Central Valley grasslands ecoregion, as well as the coniferous Sierra Nevada forests, Northern California coastal forests, and Klamath-Siskiyou forests of northern California and southwestern Oregon, share many plant and animal affinities with the California chaparral and woodlands. Many botanists consider the California chaparral and woodlands, Sierra Nevada forests, Klamath-Siskiyou forests, and Northern California coastal forests as a single California Floristic Province, excluding the deserts of eastern California, which belong to other floristic provinces. Many Bioregionalists, including poet Gary Snyder, identify the central and northern Coast Ranges, Klamath-Siskiyou, the Central Valley, and Sierra Nevada as the Shasta Bioregion or the Alta California Bioregion
The ecoregion includes a great variety of plant communities, including grasslands, Oak savannas and woodlands, chaparral, and coniferous forests, including southern stands of the tall Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). It is home to a great many endemic species. Some plant communities include:
The rain beetles are notable insect residents of this ecoregion. They spend up to several years living underground in a larval stage and emerge only during wet-season rains to mate.
The region has been heavily affected by grazing, logging, dams and water diversions, and intensive agriculture and urbanization, as well as competition by numerous introduced or exotic plant and animal species. Some unique plant communities, like southern California's Coastal Sage Scrub, have been nearly eradicated by agriculture and urbanization. As a result, the region now has many rare and endangered species, including the California condor (Gymnogyps californianus).
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